Weekend Box Office Wrap-Up
Magical Marketing Catapults Wild Things and Box Office
By John Hamann
October 18, 2009
Fourth goes to Couples Retreat, which stumbles badly after a $34 million start last weekend. This weekend, the critically reviled comedy earned $17.9 million, and drops a wicked for comedy 49%. The Vince Vaughan-led Universal flick has a running gross now of $63.3 million against a production budget of $60 million.
New release The Stepfather finishes fifth, but still does okay considering the success of fellow horror flick, Paranormal Activity. The Stepfather earned $12.3 million, which can't be considered bad for what should have been a dead on arrival remake. Released to 2,734 venues, The Stepfather had a venue average of $4,499. Curently this one is 7% fresh at RottenTomatoes, and is not recommended.
Dropping from third last weekend to sixth this weekend is Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Sony's other strong performer through October. Now in its fifth weekend, Meatballs finally broke through the $100 million mark with a weekend gross of $8.1 million, which was down 30% from the previous frame. Considering that Meatballs had to deal with the Toy Story Double Feature, and now Wild Things, I think Sony has to very pleased with its performance, as it has a running total now of $108.3 million.
Zombieland drops to seventh this weekend, as the three-weekend old horror comedy runs into some unexpectedly large competition. Zombieland earned another $7.8 million, giving it a drop from last weekend of 47%. Sony should be pleased that this one has managed to drop less than 50% each weekend, as this type of film could have seen bigger drops. The total now for the $23.6 million feature has reached $60.8 million.
The Toy Story 3-D Double Feature moves down to eighth this weekend, and despite being marketed as a two-week limited engagement, here it is enjoying a third weekend (you gotta love Disney). Toy Story earned another $3 million (in what is basically all revenue for the studio), and was off 61%. This experiment has now earned $29 million..
Touchstone's Surrogates is ninth. The four-weekend old Bruce Willis feature earned $1.9 million this weekend, and was off 55%. It has now earned $36.3 million, or about half of its $80 million budget.
The Invention of Lying rounds out the top ten this weekend. The Ricky Gervais flick that didn't click earned $1.9 million and was off 43%. It has a total of $15.5 million.
Overall this weekend, the box office is way, way, up over last year. A year ago four new films opened, with Mark Wahlberg's Max Payne reaching the top, but with only $17.6 million. Last year, the top 12 films could only gross $84.8 million. This year, with Wild Things more than doubling the Max Payne gross, the box office top 12 earned a fantastic $129.8 million, a record for a top 12 in October. Next weekend could be interesting as well. Summit Entertainment releases Astroboy to over 3,000 venues, and Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant also debuts, on top of the second weekend of Where The Wild Things Are.
| 1 |
Where the Wild Things Are |
Warner Bros. |
$32,470,000 |
$32,695,407 |
New |
$32,695,407 |
| 2 |
Law Abiding Citizen |
Overture Films |
$21,250,000 |
$21,039,510 |
New |
$21,039,510 |
| 3 |
Paranormal Activity |
Paramount Pictures |
$20,163,000 |
$19,617,650 |
New |
$33,171,743 |
| 4 |
Couples Retreat |
Universal |
$17,948,685 |
$17,227,390 |
- 49.8% |
$62,617,735 |
| 5 |
The Stepfather |
Screen Gems |
$12,300,000 |
$11,581,586 |
New |
$11,581,586 |
| 6 |
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs |
Sony/Columbia |
$8,100,000 |
$8,017,871 |
- 30.4% |
$108,201,645 |
| 7 |
Zombieland |
Sony (Columbia) |
$7,800,000 |
$7,616,939 |
- 48.5% |
$60,640,317 |
| 8 |
Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3d |
WALT DISNEY |
N/A |
$3,016,580 |
New |
$28,554,678 |
| 9 |
Surrogates |
Touchstone Pictures |
$1,922,000 |
$1,917,315 |
- 55.1% |
$36,327,650 |
| 10 |
The Invention of Lying |
Warner Bros. Pictures |
$1,905,000 |
$1,907,398 |
- 42.9% |
$15,497,164 |
| 11 |
Whip It |
Fox Searchlight Pictures |
$1,525,000 |
$1,507,379 |
- 46.7% |
$11,360,796 |
| 12 |
Capitalism: A Love Story |
Overture Films |
$1,433,000 |
$1,455,510 |
- 44.7% |
$11,622,433 |
| |
Also Opening/Notables |
| |
New York, I Love You |
|
$372,107 |
$380,776 |
New |
$380,776 |
| |
Black Dynamite |
|
$140,986 |
$131,862 |
New |
$131,862 |
| |
Main Aurr Mrs. Khanna |
Utv |
N/A |
$121,134 |
New |
$121,134 |
| |
The Maid |
Elephant Eye |
N/A |
$17,056 |
New |
$17,056 |
| |
Visual Acoustics |
Arthouse |
$14,077 |
$11,915 |
New |
$17,252 |
| |
A Serious Man |
Focus Features |
$860,257 |
$842,511 |
+ 83.4% |
$1,843,307 |
| |
Fame |
MGM |
$880,000 |
$903,890 |
- 64.5% |
$21,795,849 |
| |
The Informant! |
Warner Bros. Pictures |
$1,005,000 |
$955,456 |
- 56.7% |
$31,766,896 |
|
Click here for all weekend data
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Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations
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